I continue down the wall, smiling at the photographs, remembering the subject behind each one. I pass my mom’s eye, which looks like a sunflower; Dad’s eye, which looks like planet Earth from space; Frankie’s eye, which looks like a galaxy—no surprise there—until I finally get to my own eye. It’s a bright, almost electric blue, with spindly white threads dancing across it, like a spiderweb strung across a cloudless blue sky.
I beam proudly when I read the small white placard underneath.
Make a wish.
I wrote that caption as a little inside joke between Dad and me. He always thought spiderwebs were lucky, and when I was a kid I used to make wishes on them. He took the photograph a few months ago, and the next day he found out he was getting this show. “See?” he said to me that day. “I always knew you were lucky. There’s the proof. Right there.”
“So?” Dad says, coming up behind me. “What do you think?”
I turn and smile at him. “It’s amazing, Dad. It’s…” But I can’t even finish the thought because my voice cracks and I feel tears welling up. I’m just so proud of him. He’s been waiting so long for this moment.
Dad seems to get the point anyway and pulls me into a hug. “Thanks, kiddo.”
The doors to the gallery open, and from that moment on there’s a constant stream of people coming and going, chattering excitedly about my dad’s art. I stand in the corner and just watch the whole thing. Everyone is agog at the photos. They tilt their heads and move back and forth from the walls, trying to see the various pictures hidden within each piece. Dad spends the evening bustling about, explaining his intention with each one and changing people’s perspective.
By the time the clock hits eleven, every single piece in this gallery has been sold. The art dealer said she’s never seen anything like it from a new artist. I want to tell her that my dad isn’t a new artist. He’s been doing this for years. This is just the first time you dumbos have taken notice.
I watch as my dad delivers the news to my mom, who’s dressed in her typical black work suit, sipping champagne as she makes polite small talk with some snobby art critic. As soon as he tells her, all of her professionalism and lawyerly composure goes right out the window and she turns into a teenage girl at a rock concert. She squeals and leaps into his arms. Dad twirls her around and then she kisses him hard on the lips.
“Yuck,” Frankie says next to me, averting his eyes, and I laugh. I know you’re supposed to be grossed out seeing your parents display affection for each other, and normally I am. But not now. Now, I’m just fascinated by it. And so inspired.
My dad hasn’t earned a dime since my mother met him. Sure, he takes care of everything at home. He makes us breakfast and dinner and does the laundry and helps us with our homework—well, he helps me. Frankie stopped needing help when he was in second grade. But he’s turned down every single job offer those stupid Jeffrey and Associates people have sent him. He’s refused to sell out and become a corporate photographer in exchange for a steady paycheck. Because he believed in his art. And so did my mom. She supported him—and us—completely on her own, without ever complaining about it.
And now it’s finally paid off.
Frankie buries his face in my jacket and I ruffle his hair. “Is it over?” he asks.
I watch Mom jump back down, keeping her arms tightly around my dad. “Yeah,” I tell him. “It’s over.”
He lifts his head and gags. “In a parallel universe that never happened.”
“I think it’s nice,” I tell him, “that Mom is so supportive. It’s important to him and she gets that…”
My voice trails off as I remember my conversation with Austin in the hallway today. How quickly I dismissed his comedy show for being lame and juvenile. He loves that show. He’s been looking forward to the new season for eight months. Sure, it may not be a photography exhibit at an art gallery, but it’s important to him. And I haven’t been supportive at all.
While my parents are talking to the art dealer, I slip out the back door and get into my car. I check the clock on the dash. It’s a little after eleven thirty. There are eight episodes in the season and they’re each an hour long. Austin said the episodes were being released at seven. That means, if I hurry, I can still watch the last few with him and Laney.
I speed the entire way there, feeling a small prick of excitement as I park the car in Austin’s driveway and tiptoe toward the basement door. I know he’ll be in there. That’s where he always watches TV. The idea of surprising him is making my heart start to hammer.
It’s kind of romantic. Me showing up for him at the last minute. Zooming across town to be a loving, supportive girlfriend and show him that I really do care about his interests. Even the ones that don’t interest me.
As I ease open the door into the main area of the basement, I can hear Tom What’s-his-butt cracking one of his signature fart jokes from the TV room next door. “The key to farting in public,” he says, “is making sure you have a fart scapegoat nearby.” The audience roars with laughter. I wait to hear Austin’s loud booming laugh and Laney’s signature chipmunk giggle-snort. They’ll definitely find that stupid joke funny. But there’s absolute silence in the next room. That’s weird. Maybe they went upstairs to get a snack. But then, why wouldn’t they pause the show?
I creep through the basement toward the TV room, listening intently. I can definitely hear something. But it’s not laughter.
It almost sounds like—
OH. MY. GOD.
I screech to a halt in the doorway as I take in the heart-ripping, gut-wrenching, life-changing sight that lies in front of me.
The TV is on. Tom Who-the-heck-cares is still cracking one lewd joke after another, but Laney and Austin aren’t catching a single word he says.
Because they’re too busy kissing.
If I Had Chosen Right
The very first thought that enters my mind as I watch my boyfriend kissing my best friend is:
You chose wrong.
Not the wrong boyfriend. And not even the wrong best friend.
But the wrong life.
I must make some kind of noise and it probably sounds something like a mouse being electrocuted because suddenly they’re not kissing anymore. They’re looking at me. And I’m looking at them and the TV is still going and an announcer kicks off the beginning of a new episode by yodeling, “How Is This My Life?”
And I think, Yes, exactly.
How is this my life?
This wasn’t supposed to be my life. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be at the Windsor Academy. I’m supposed to be with CoyCoy55 and Luce_the_Goose. We’re all supposed to be studying together in the student union or touring art museums or something.
Instead, I’m standing here like an idiot and they’re sitting there like idiots and no one is sure which idiot should talk first. It’s like one of those lame standoffs in an action flick when the cop and the bad guy are both pointing guns at each other and they’re saying things like “I know what you did” and “I’m going to blow your brains out” and “You’ll never get away with this” and “Just watch me.”
I never understood those scenes. I always thought, Why doesn’t someone freaking shoot already and put an end to this?
But now, I’m suddenly gaining a new appreciation for that particular type of stalemate. If I shoot first—if I speak or cry or yell—there’s a chance they’ll immediately shoot back. And then it’ll hurt more. And we’ll all be dead.
So I do what no cop has ever done in the history of action movies. I drop my weapon and just start running.
I can hear a single pair of footsteps following after me. I can’t tell whom they belong to. Who was sent as the envoy? Who cares enough to follow me? My stupid makes-obnoxious-sounds-with-his-teeth, likes-cheap-fart-jokes boyfriend? Or my stupid laughs-like-a-chipmunk, coffee-breath best friend?
The coffee breath.
Holy crap, it was right in front of me and I didn’t even see
it.
That’s why Laney was acting so strange today in the newspaper office.
They didn’t just both go to Peabody’s this morning. They went together.
Which means, this kiss might not be the first.
Looks like I’m the bigger idiot, after all. Although I guess I already knew that. I made the decision that got me here, didn’t I? I’m the one who chose this life.
“Kennedy! Wait!” the footsteps speak. And the voice belongs to Laney. I should have known she’d be the one to come after me.
Somewhere deep inside, I find the strength to stop. To turn around and face her. To ask the one question I know will haunt me forever if I don’t ask.
“How long?” I demand.
She stops, too, keeping a safe distance. “We never wanted to hurt you,” she whimpers. It’s a foreign sound coming from her. Like she’s on the verge of tears. But Laney never cries. She’s too strong. She’s the rock in the friendship and rocks don’t cry. “I never wanted to hurt you,” she amends.
“How long?” I repeat through clenched teeth.
Laney stares into my eyes for a long moment. She bravely holds my gaze even though her face is tormented. Then, when she can’t hold on any longer, she drops her head and whispers, “Three months.”
And then I’m running again. And Laney is calling after me again. But I don’t stop this time. I don’t want to hear her pitiful explanations and empty apologies.
I get in my car, start the engine, and throw the gearshift into Drive. As I peel away from the curb, my headlights just barely catch Laney’s silhouette on the sidewalk. Her body is slumped in surrender. Her hands are covering her eyes. Like she’s actually crying.
Like she has any right to cry.
A moment later, my phone starts exploding with texts. I pull it out of my bag and shut off the ringer. I won’t read them. Because I don’t care what they say. I don’t care about anything Laney has to say ever again. Or Austin for that matter.
Although strangely enough, it’s not the Austin part that hurts the most. It’s the Laney part. Austin’s betrayal just feels like a sunburn on top of a massive gouge in my arm. It stings, it’s uncomfortable, but it’s overshadowed by this bleeding, oozing, festering wound underneath.
She’s my best friend. My partner in crime. My news editor.
Why would she do this?
As I turn into my subdivision, a beam from one of the streetlamps bounces off something sparkling inside my car. I look down to see the glittery pink phone charger that’s plugged into the center console.
The gag gift from Laney.
Because she knows how much I hate pink things that sparkle. I hate that marketers just expect girls to buy stuff because they make it in a glittery color. Like we’re nothing more than moths attracted to shiny things. I even wrote a piece about it in the Southwest Star.
I slam on the brakes and the car lurches to a halt. With my heart still pounding and my inhales and exhales sounding like I’m breathing through a scuba mask, I yank out the charger, roll down the window, and chuck it as far as I can. Which admittedly isn’t very far because I’m not that good at throwing stuff and the wind catches the cord and nearly blows it back in my face. Now it’s lying on the ground in the middle of the street. The pink glitter flashing in the streetlights.
No, I think. Not good enough.
I throw the car in Reverse and back up. Then I floor the gas pedal and race forward until I hear the satisfying crunch under my tires.
Then I back up and do it again. And again. And again. Back and forth. Back and forth. Until the crunching sound subsides and there’s nothing but dust left and the stupid thing finally stops sparkling.
If I Had Said No
The house is quiet when I get home. There’s an empty champagne bottle on the kitchen counter. For a brief moment, I forget everything that happened in the last thirty minutes. I forget about Laney’s betrayal and Austin’s lies and three and a half years of friendship down the drain.
My dad had an amazing night tonight. He reached a career milestone. Everything’s going to change for him now. Some people thought he was crazy. Turning down job offers all of those years. Rejecting the opportunity for a steady paycheck and a steady job just so he could take pictures of eyeballs. But in the end, everything worked out. He believed in something with all his heart and it paid off.
He made the right choice.
I run upstairs to my room and collapse on my bed. I pull my phone out of my bag and immediately click on CoyCoy55’s SnipPic feed. I scroll through the photos, finding one of my favorites from a week ago. It was another Caption Challenge with her and Luce_the_Goose. They were studying in the Windsor Academy’s stunning high-ceilinged student union. Their signature school-issued navy blue laptops are open on the table. In the picture, they’re both swooning theatrically—CoyCoy55 collapsed in her chair with her hand to her forehead like she fainted in a Jane Austen novel and Luce_the_Goose sprawled across the table, fanning herself.
The caption reads: “My Book Boyfriend Just Proposed!”
I should be in that photo. I should be fake swooning right alongside them.
Seething, I toss the phone aside, stand up, and head straight for the bottom drawer of my desk. That’s where I keep the letter.
I gently run my fingertip back and forth over the blue and silver Windsor Academy logo embossed right onto the paper as my eyes skim the words on the page that I still have memorized all of these years later.
Congratulations …
A place has opened up …
You have shown tremendous potential …
We are thrilled to offer you admission …
Please respond by …
The truth is, I didn’t get into the Windsor Academy. At least not at first. I got wait-listed at the end of the sixth grade. I was beyond devastated because I knew there was no chance I’d ever get in.
No one ever gets off the wait list. Because no one ever leaves. The Windsor Academy is the kind of school that unlocks doors that don’t even have handles. If you’re lucky enough to get accepted right out of elementary school then you stay put. All the way until high school graduation.
But then, two years later, right before the end of eighth grade, the impossible happened. This letter arrived informing me that a space was available. And, if I so chose, I could start freshman year of high school with the young elite.
It was a miracle.
But as my fickle luck would have it, it wasn’t the first miracle that had happened to me that week.
The first miracle had arrived five days earlier, also in the form of a letter. I opened my locker to find the note carefully folded up inside. My name was written on the outside, surrounded by a lopsided heart.
I tore it open and my heart hammered in my chest as I read the words I’d been waiting to hear for nearly two years.
Wanna go to the movies with me tonight?
It was from him. Austin McKinley. If there was ever anything I wanted more than the Windsor Academy, it was Austin McKinley. I had loved him from afar since the first day of seventh grade. I had fallen asleep to fantasies of kissing him every night. I had scribbled our names in thousands of hearts on thousands of notebook pages and Photoshopped our faces together more times than I’d ever admit.
And now, he wanted to go out. With me.
Of course I said yes. I agonized over the date for hours. What would I wear? What would I say? Where would I put my hands? When my mom dropped me off at the theater later that night, I saw him waiting for me in the lobby, standing next to the refreshment stand looking jaw-dropping in jeans and still-wet hair.
After the movie, he told me what a good time he’d had and asked if we could hang out again. Then he leaned forward and pecked me on the lips, lighting a hundred fires all over my body. When he pulled back and I looked into his clear-as-crystal blue eyes, that was it. It was all over.
When the Windsor Academy letter came, I immediately knew.
I could
never say yes to both of them. I would have to choose.
Turning down the Windsor Academy was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Although truthfully, I never actually turned them down. The letter had an expiration date. Respond by this day or your spot will be given away. I simply didn’t respond.
I hid the letter in my bottom drawer and never told a soul.
Maybe because somewhere deep inside, I always knew it was the wrong choice. Maybe because I assumed if anyone knew, they would try to talk me out of it. And I didn’t want to be talked out of it.
I wanted Austin.
I knew our budding relationship would never survive if I went to Windsor at the end of the summer. Even though it was only a few miles away from Southwest High, I was smart enough to understand how these things worked. Long-distance relationships in high school—even three-mile-radius ones—were doomed to fail.
Of course I had doubts at first. Of course I still wondered if I’d made the right choice every time I passed by Windsor on the way to school. But I dealt with it.
As my relationship with Austin blossomed and evolved and we eventually became one of the longest-standing couples at Southwest High, my self-doubt slowly faded until it was background noise. Until I could barely hear it.
I fold up the letter and place it back in my desk drawer. I don’t even realize I’ve been crying until I turn around and the room is blurry. I sniffle and wipe at my eyes. And that’s when I see the framed photograph sitting on the floor near my closet. It wasn’t there this morning, but it’s there now, leaning against the wall. I recognize it immediately.
It’s my eye.
My extreme close-up blue spiderweb of an eye. The one that was on display at the sold-out gallery show tonight.
Curiously, I step closer to it until I see the small Post-it note with Dad’s neat handwriting attached to the top left corner of the frame.
Couldn’t bear to sell this one. —Dad
Then my gaze falls to the little white placard at the bottom of the frame. The caption I wrote for him:
In Some Other Life: A Novel Page 4
